Cue the cliche: A victory tonight would put Northern Illinois on the map. The No. 16-ranked Huskies have been widely derided as unworthy of a BCS bowl berth, which makes them eager for validation when they face No. 13 Florida State.

“We’re playing a team that is going to be willing to bloody their noses and get after you,” Seminoles offensive coordinator James Coley warned.

Northern Illinois (12-1) is the first Mid-American Conference team to play in the Bowl Championship Series. The Huskies made it when they cracked the top 16 in the final standings by 0.0404 points, setting off a celebration in DeKalb and a backlash everywhere else.

The BCS busters arrived in south Florida without apology.

“There are a lot of angry people out there,” NIU offensive coordinator Bob Cole said. “But there are probably 120 of us in the hotel that are really happy about the whole deal. We don’t really care what everybody else thinks.”

The bowl berth meant 17 Huskies would see the ocean for the first time. One story about the team used the phrase “bowl bumpkins.”

“We laugh at it, whatever that’s supposed to mean,” linebacker Tyrone Clark said. “We take this as an amazing opportunity for the MAC, the school and the players.”

Actually, success is nothing new to the Huskies, who are playing in a bowl for the fifth consecutive season. Since October 2011 they have the best record in the country at 21-1.

They’ve won 12 games in a row, matching Ohio State and Notre Dame for the longest active winning streak.

Quarterback Jordan Lynch leads the nation in rushing and total offense, and he finished seventh in the Heisman Trophy voting.

But the Huskies barely beat Army, Toledo and Kansas. They lost to Iowa, which won only three other games. They’ve never beaten an opponent ranked higher than 15th.

At a news conference Monday for the head coaches, Florida State’s Jimbo Fisher agreed to pose with the Orange Bowl trophy. Northern Illinois’ Rod Carey declined, but not because his team is a two-touchdown underdog.

“Underdog? What is that?” Carey said. “Our kids play with a chip on their shoulder all the time. I mean, if we were favored by 21 points I’d be more nervous.”

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Until kickoff, it’s impossible to know how seriously Florida State (11-2) will take a supposedly unimposing opponent. The matchup’s a letdown for the Seminoles, who wanted to wait another week to play in Miami — in the BCS title game.

But in the days leading up to the game, the Seminoles said all the right things about Northern Illinois.

“We’re not going to underestimate anybody,” receiver Rodney Smith said. “Everybody is trying to say NIU doesn’t deserve to be here, but as a team we’re saying they’re here for a reason. We’re going to treat them like they’re the No. 1-ranked team in the nation.”

They’re No. 1 in DeKalb, anyway, especially in the wake of their Orange Bowl berth.

“They’ve got signs all over the place in the street back home — ‘Go Huskies’ and ‘Good Luck in the Orange Bowl,’” Cole said. “For what it has done for our community, our players, our school, it has been unbelievable.”

DeKalb is located an hour west of Chicago, on the banks of the Kishwaukee River, in Rand McNally grid C-10. A good crowd at Huskies Stadium is 18,000, and the town’s population of 45,000 would barely fill half of the Orange Bowl’s seats.

“In DeKalb you’ve got your local cornfields,” linebacker Clark said. “We’ve got a lot of space there. And you’ve got your daily wind. It’s just a small town with a nice-size university — and a select number of people.”

Added teammate Sean Progar: “There’s not too much to do but play football.”

That’s what the small-town Huskies will do tonight on their biggest stage ever.

Orange Bowl at a glance

Who: No. 13 Florida State (11-2) vs. No. 16 Northern Illinois (12-1)

When: 7:30 tonight

TV: ESPN

Where: Sun Life Stadium, Miami Gardens, Fla.

Line: Florida State by 13.

Series record: First meeting.

What’s at stake: Northern Illinois seeks to validate its bowl bid after becoming the first Mid-American Conference team to reach the Bowl Championship Series. Florida State is looking for its fifth consecutive bowl win, but is trying to break a streak of four consecutive losses in BCS bowls. The Seminoles’ EJ Manuel seeks to become only the second quarterback to go 4-0 in bowl games.

Key matchup: Junior QB Jordan Lynch will face a Florida State defense that ranks second in yards allowed at 253.8 per game. Lynch led the nation with 1,771 yards rushing, a record for quarterbacks. The Seminoles allowed only 93.0 yards rushing per game, fifth-best.

Players to watch:

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Florida State: Manuel has a career completion percentage of 66.8, best in school history. He leads an offense that averages 7.01 yards per play, which is tied for best in the nation. Senior Dustin Hopkins is the NCAA’s career leader in kick scoring with 459 points. This season WR Rashad Greene scored twice on punt returns, five times receiving and once rushing. Junior All-American Bjoern Werner has 23½ career sacks, including 13 this season.

Northern Illinois: Lynch made second-team All-American as an all-purpose player and finished seventh in the Heisman Trophy voting. He leads the nation in total offense and needs 38 yards passing to become the first player to pass for 3,000 yards and rush for 1,500 in a season.

Facts and figures: Northern Illinois’ lone loss came in its season opener against Iowa, 18-17. ... The Huskies and Oregon are the only teams to win at least 11 games each of the past three seasons. ... Rod Carey will make his debut as a head coach for the Huskies. He replaces Dave Doeren, who was hired as coach at North Carolina State on Dec. 1. ... The Huskies are 2-6 against Atlantic Coast Conference teams, and 5-27 against ranked teams. Florida State would be the highest-ranked team they’ve ever beaten. ... The Seminoles are playing in a bowl game for the 31st year in a row, the longest active streak. ... Florida State is playing in a BCS bowl for the first time since losing to Penn State in the 2006 Orange Bowl.